YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT: Scientists successfully engineer chicken-to-dinosaur in 'reverse evolution'

'The experiments are focused on single traits, to test specific hypotheses.'

Scientists at the Universidad de Chile created a chicken with the features of a Deinonychus, believed to have lived during the Cretaceous period.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Deinonychus is a kind of velociraptor made famous in the Jurassic Park films. It was originally believed to have scales, but over the years, researchers discovered the raptors were more likely to be feathered, which is where the chicken came in.

Chicken legs share several similarities to the Deinonychus, so scientists in Chile decided to conduct a "reverse evolution" experiment to manipulate modern chicken genes to produce prehistoric dino traits.

When chicks are developing in their shells, their tubular fibula - the bones of the lower leg - develops in the same way they did for dinosaurs, but as the chick grows, the bone splinters so the tibia can grow past the fibula.

In the lab, researcher Joâo Botelho stopped the cell division and growth of the bone during the chick's early development, resulting in long tubular fibulas that connect to the ankle, much like the raptors' did.

Had the chick's genes not been altered, a bone called the calcaneum would have grown to press against the bottom of the fibula to intercede between the ankle and fibula, resulting in the shorter legs modern chickens display.

To create a "dinosaur chicken," researchers explained the calcaneum must remain attached to the fibula, which would allow the ends of bones to continue growing.

For the dino-chickens, researchers discovered the tibias were shorter than normal, which is consistent with evolutionary patterns seen in fossil records.

Though reverse evolution led to the creation of a modern chicken with prehistoric traits, it is far from Botelho's first success.

He previously worked in a lab at Yale University, where he reproduced a "perching toe" in a chicken, which is a non-opposable toe dinosaurs had. He also manipulated genes to create a dinosaur-like snout.

Alexandar Vargas, another scientist, explained: The experiments are focused on single traits, to test specific hypotheses. ... This leads naturally to hypotheses on the evolution of development that can be explored in the lab."

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